I tried drawing one of the old Milt Gross pics you put up, John, and I thought I was going to prove to myself that he doesn't use construction... but I was wrong. So wrong.

I saw all the principles you talk about ( clear staging, negative shapes, etc. ) but I thought, because of Milt's very loose drawing style, that he wasn't using any construction in his characters.

Whenever I attempt a construction drawing, I always doodle it first, and my doodles of Milt's stuff were awful. The constructed and final versions, however, looked right.

I've come to the conclusion that Gross was so confident in his penstrokes that it came off feeling spontaneous and free. I look at it now and see the construction, and almost feel stupid for not seeing it before.

its a little difficult to describe, but to me, there is something different in the relationship of the verbal and the visual in Gross' drawings, compared to other comics.I'm generalizing but most other comics have a form similar to drawing room comedies, like Noel Coward or something like that; it's basically characters on a stage.Milt Gross seems to be structured differently.